Appearing on MSNBC on Sunday Afternoon, Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (D-MO) brushed aside advice from fellow Democrat Rep. Tulis Gabbard that Democrats are making a mistake by impeaching Donald YTrump -- saying lawmakers have a constitutional duty to fulfill regardless of her worries that the president will be "emboldened " by the move.
Speaking with host Alex Witt, the Missouri Democrat was asked about his colleagues comments, where she lamented, "I think impeachment, unfortunately, will only further embolden Donald Trump, increase his support and the likelihood that he’ll have a better shot at getting elected while also seeing the likelihood that the House will lose a lot of seats to Republicans.”
"I am curious, are you agreeing with her, and he is going to become more emboldened," host Witt asked, ''And i should note that you tabled two resolutions before voting to impeach two weeks ago."
"Look, Donald Trump is going claim innocence even if Moses and Jeremiah and Elijah stand up and on clouds and say that he is guilty," Cleaver responded. "He will go out to next rally and say, 'you know, the great prophets just proclaimed me to be innocent.' I mean, we won't stop that. So I think that what we have to do is to understand that there is some constitutional loyalty that we must express, and that is we cannot allow a person to blatantly violate the laws of the land, and somehow just remain quiet and passive."
"I mean, that is dangerous to a democracy," he continued. "And so, I think that -- look, I voted twice against the impeachment or at least moving the process forward as did a number of others, and the leader, Nancy Pelosi isn't anxious to go into this either. So it is not like we have been standing around hoping that we would have an opportunity to vote on impeaching Donald Trump."
Donald Trump has been walking around since day one with sign that reads, 'please impeach me,' and finally, we said, 'hey, you have to put the sign down, because we will do it,'" he concluded.
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